


Something Broken

by Damienhiphop24



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alters, Angst, Character Death, Character Development, Child Abuse, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Illness, Multiple Personalities, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, Self-Hatred, Sexual Assault, Song Inspired Chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2018-12-20 09:31:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11918031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damienhiphop24/pseuds/Damienhiphop24
Summary: It began when he was nine.For Drew, life was simple games in the garden, rummaging through a build-up of garbage in his impoverished neighborhood, and staying out of the musky townhouse he just could not call home.For Andrew, life was protecting Drew, no matter the consequences, producing a normal, unrecognizable persona for them that no one could ruin, and making sure no one, especially Drew, knows what happened that night in the townhouse Drew could never call home.•••"I'll protect you," Andrew whispers.•••





	1. Andrew Steps Forward, Drew Steps Back

**Author's Note:**

> This story has many adult themes such as sexual assault/violence, graphic violence, mental illness, Dissociative Identity Disorder, abuse, and emotional abuse. PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE QUEASY TO ANY OF THESE!
> 
> On another note, I will be attempting to portray all of these the best that I can. Romanticizing and promoting any of these themes is horrendous, in my opinion, and that is not what I'm attempting to come across and do. Just because these themes are inside a story, does not mean I am romanticizing or promoting them. Although, please, if I do portray something wrong or come across as offensive in any other way than it just being there, tell me, and will try to change it.
> 
> Thank you for your time, my fellow readers, writers and misc, you can go on to the chapter!

_Two steps forward, one step back..._  
~ some frog in a well

* * *

 

It began when he was nine.  
•••  
For Drew, life was simple games in the garden, rummaging through a build-up of garbage in his impoverished neighborhood, and staying out of the musky townhouse he just could not call home.

Maybe his house feeling like an actual, comfortable home to him would somehow be feasible, if **They** were not in the house.

So, Drew sat on a poorly paved sidewalk, in raggedy clothes, trying to be content with his moldy sock and broken spoon. He knew he wouldn't have this amount of freedom for long.

Walking home was usually a challenge for Drew, and as the sun began to set over his impoverished neighborhood, he knew today was no exception.

  _Two steps forward, one step back,_ Drew often thought. He did not mean this literally— him trudging home like that would attract way too much unwanted attention—but in his mind it made sense.

It was one of those odd quotes he had learned in the lavish private school he had gone to, before he realized life was precariously unsubstantial and happiness is often scarce. He did not remember much from that glorious, ignorant time, yet _two steps forward, one step back_ always stuck in his mind. Drew found it odd how anyone could say this, besides, if a person walked like this, weren't they still going forward? Then again, maybe this was another distraction to get his mind off of heading home.

To get his mind off the torture before him.

Mind now aguishly back on track, Drew dug his nails into the palms of his hands. He felt only dread as images of past and, hopefully not, future pain flashed in his mind. Anyone who saw him walking down that sidewalk would wonder what left such a young boy with such a terrified expression. Then again, in this environment, it could've been one of many guesses.

His breath constricted, exactly the same way it did when **They** struck him. And he could almost feel the tangible blows of the belt buckles, lamps, and, more often than not, callused hands. All the pleas for someone, anyone, to help him, crying out, whimpering, no matter how often he was never answered.

Yes, walking home was often a challenge for Drew.

As he saw the dingy townhouse in the distance, Drew could not even muster up any faith it would not be one of those days.

One of those days where when the sun finally sets, enraged shouts and screams, created by his Ma and **They** , shook the vicinity. And the late nights afterward, when **They** blamed and punched and laughed and Ma pretended not to hear.

  One of those horrendous, vile days where Drew's chest and throat and _thoughts_ hurt too much for him even scream out anymore in anguish, or ask all the never-ending questions of _why_.

Finally at his door, Drew paused, feeling as if he wanted to burst into tears. It felt impossible to go inside the building. At that moment, Drew was sure he wanted to take _two steps forward, one step back_.  
As long as walking like this kept him from going back to the musky townhouse he would never call home.  
•••

Later that evening, as the arguing reached an abrupt close with the slam of a door, and Drew's eyes already showed dread, unadulterated dread of what he knew was going to happen next, his bedroom door almost exploded open, greeting him to a person that could only feasibly be, in Drew's mind, created from pure nightmares.

"This is your fault! You _worthless_ PEICE OF SHIT!"

Terror overwhelmed Drew's senses. This was when things often went downhill, with words that pained almost as much as the never-ending blows.

He was _worthless_ , he was _stupid_ , he was _a freak_.

He was **_nothing_**.

These words, these piercing, agonizing words haunted Drew's every waking moment. Every shout of disgust, every scream of his worthless, was like a new scar ripping its way down his skin. The scars then built up, littering his body with ache and guilt. And every time they begin to heal, every time he feels some sort of self worth, the scars got teared open again and again, reminding him and reprimanding him of how much of just plain nothing he really was.

The words somehow appeared to ache more than the beatings.

  Drew heard the slap, resonating off the walls, before he felt it. Then, suddenly there was an overbearing sting, one that forced welled up tears out of his eyes. He turned down to the floor, letting his eyes bleed their tears downward so **They** would not see them.

This made **They** even angrier.

  "YOU **_WORTHLESS_** , **_S-STUPID—!_** "

  A gruff hand was around Drew neck before the exclamation ended. Drew gasped, head forced up to look at **They's** drunken eyes. It burned to look at his piercing rage just as much as his constricted throat did. Air seemed like a distant memory as he choked and gasped for the relief that was not coming.

The world appeared to turn at an odd precipice, spinning in colors as Drew was urgently grasping for some way to get away from the hand tightly gripping and marking his neck.

  Hours seemed to pass before the aggravated man reluctantly let go. Drew stumbled backwards, hitting his door as he gasped and coughed in the air urgently.  

  Colors were whirling back into a focus, yet the contents of his room were still spinning, like a horror filled carousel. 

  His wheezes and coughs filled the vicinity, deeply burning his throat. Specks of blood from his throat littered his frail hands. The copper substance seemed to make the burn worse, as his throat, along with the rest on his body, was feeling and unbearable ache.

   Although dizzy, Drew now noticed he was crouched underneath his frequently assaulted door. Gaining some semblance of hope, Drew reached for the smooth,  cold doorknob, the one that marked his freedom, with a shaking hand.

  It was locked.

•••

  It was as if he had fallen into an oblivion of nightmares.

Everything was just, _too bright_. The lights of his room appeared to flash and pop, making him want to scream out in terror if not for the rawness of his throat.

It was _too loud_. A person, a _horrible_ person was saying something, something that still stung, deep in his bones, although sounding like one ear piercing, garbled mess to him. And the roaring in his ears built louder and louder, pressure forcing him to hold his head.

The pain everywhere on his body exploded into a cacophony. The burn of every single individual mark on his skin screamed and ached, and his whole being felt like a load of bile, of just, _too bright, too loud, **too much**_. 

   Air did not seemed to be there anymore, as of there wasn't enough left. He started breathing frantically, whimpering for an end to the budding pressure in his lungs.

   He was still spiraling, with only visions of pain, as **They** was beating and punching and kicking him over and over again.

_**They** was kicking him in the stomach repeatedly..._

_Now **They** was slashing open Drew's weaken back with a large belt buckle..._

_Insane laughter tore through Drew's thoughts and left him fearful and begging..._

  Drew felt a jolt to his gut, and the overwhelmingly loud and abrupt sound of a door slamming, but that didn't completely register with him, because he was trapped, _trapped_ in **They's** hands, deep within his mind.

And through the _roaring_ in his ears and the _ache_ everywhere and the _painful_ memories and the _**too much**_ , Drew folded himself into a fetal position, his own thoughts producing a grim mantra.

_'why can't it end, why can't I stop it, why can't she notice, why can't I die, why can't I stop it, why can't I die, whycan'tIdie **whycan'tIdie—** '_

_"It's ok."_

A soft, juvenile voice cut through the roaring chaos of Drew's mind. It was comforting, yet sounded oddly...like him.

_"Let go. It's ok, just please, let go..."_

The calming voice continued the chant, bringing Drew down from the inane madness that was his mind. It was almost siren-like, lulling the roaring and images in Drew's mind elsewhere.

Although, a new pressure, one centered around the back of his eyes and his forehead, was building up.

 Drew groaned, just realizing his eyes were now tightly closed, and opened them. His vision was blurry in one of his eyes, most likely from the tears he hadn't known he shed during and before his panic attack. The other eye had barely any vision at all, most likely because the purple bruised black eye beginning to form.

He only really knew the name of the spirals into terror, or panic attacks he often had because the wary, and usually uncaring school counselor gave out packets once. As his new 4th grade teacher, Mr.Mollusk spammed them out to the rest of the uninterested 4th grade class, Drew was often fed and not beaten enough in the beginning of the school year to be enthusiastic about reading, so he opened the packet, long after the other unsympathetic 9-10 year olds had already ripped it up due to pure boredom, or thrown it in the trash.

  He did not understand much of the packet, and knew it was most likely not for his age, if the melodramatic picture of a teenager in a fetal position crying on the front cover told him anything.

Yet, through the over-emphasized surfer lingo, he found out that the roaring in his ears and hyperventilation wasn't him falling into merciless oblivion, but something that happened when he was scared or anxious.

The pamphlet had told him to take deep breaths to relive the pressure and thoughts in his head, which he did right away, after looking around and finding out **They** wasn't there anymore. Although, through the deep breaths in and out, the melodious voice and the other pressure in his head did not desist.

_"Please, it's ok, let go..."_

Even though the voice lulled his intrusive thoughts to a trickle, Drew still felt an uneasiness about it. He was wary of any type of voices in his head in fact, mostly because his mother, who, tipsy at the time, spewed off at the television set about an insane person who heard voices inside there head. 

Although...

_"It's ok if you let go. I'll protect you. Please..."_

The voice itself was calming, and Drew thought maybe, if the voice protected him from injury, it couldn't be that bad if he did let go...

**  
No.**

Something, something _deep_ imbedded in Drew's mind, told him the siren-like voice should not be trusted. As he opened his scrunched closed eyes he hadn't realized he had closed, the pressure in his forehead had subsided almost immediately. Also did the voice, now only  a faint memory to Drew. Drew sighed and laid back into the corner he had been kicked and punched into, letting himself relax into the uncomfortable crevice of the wall.

Maybe it was the overwhelming strain that had just been on his mind, or the soreness and strain his body had from being beaten repeatedly, but for the third time that night, Drew's eyes closed sorely, allowing him to fall into an uneasy slumber.

They closed, until the Devil decided to visit him again that Sunday evening.

•••

Drew's already suffering door banged open again, hard enough to give it intense vertigo if it were alive. Drew had been shook abruptly from his slumber by the loud sound, yet, almost instinctively, did not open his eyes. He thought back on a conversation in 3rd grade where a teacher had told him if you didn't move when a wild dog was chasing you, it would not harm you.

Drew thought of **They** as the wild dog, and if he continued to feign sleep, They wouldn't harm him. Being hopeful, he pushed down all the realistic thoughts that said otherwise.

"YOU TOLD HER!" **They** shouted in blind rage, before realizing his culprit was asleep in the right corner of the beige colored room.

Short, aggravated huffs could be heard drawing nearer to Drew's fetal position. Shivers went up Drew's spine in anticipation and fear. **They** seemed to be right above him now, the grim smelling, aggravated huffs now breathing goosebumps onto Drew's skin.

He tried to contain his shivers as **They** grabbed him roughly by the shoulder. The want to cry out seemed harder to contain when **They** was leaning almost on him, dank breath huffing almost unbearable fumes onto Drew's face, and the gruff hand on his shoulder lingered just a bit longer than it should have.

Drew was not exactly sure why, but the lingering touch of **They's** broad hand had already begun to make Drew incredulously uncomfortable.

 **They's** unwanted touch ended almost as quickly as it began though, with They abruptly shaking Drew, which jolted his head into the wall behind him. **They's** next shout was lost to Drew in his discombobulated state.

Although, he still had remembered to keep up his act of being asleep up, pretending he had been asleep the whole entire time by slowly opening his eyes and groaning, which was most likely just an effect from the aforementioned head-bump.

 **They** didn't seem to care much for his careful acting, and slammed Drew into the wall, hard, a second time. Drew's head appeared to be doing cartwheels by then, and the pull of the jolt still forced his eyes open to see a hideous, frightful scene.

"You told her to! You _worthless_ bitch!"

She...? Drew had told her... what? Words fuzzed and his world blurred, and Drew's head felt as if it were cracking open.

  Yet, the world's blurred buzzing came to a sudden, frigid, focus as **They's** furious rage suddenly turned into a ice cold, _sinister_ smile.

The air was thick with tension as everything around seemed to fade. When Drew's eyes stared at the grin **They** possessed, they showed back only fear. He felt bile rise in his gut, and the immediate need to run, _run_ and hide away as far as he could possibly could.

 **They** often laughed and smirked and smiled when causing Drew pain, somehow being infatuated with the thought of Drew's screams, his _pleas_ to stop.

Although, Drew knew deep in his soul that this, _this_ was something more sinister.

The expression cut through him like a hot butter knife, and with its cold, twisted, almost grimace like features of pure glee let Drew know this would not be a normal beating.

It would be an act of torture the Devil could not form more perfectly.

  The odd pressure in his skull returned again.

  **They** picked Drew up roughly and slammed him, hard, onto the bed.  
  On his knees above Drew, piercing smile still in place on his face, **They** growled.

"Bet you'll enjoy this, _stupid_ cunt!"

  Drew had no conscious idea how he could possibly enjoy whatever torment **They** decided to subject him to, but as he shakes in fright, he knew he wouldn't dare to question it.

Drew felt the flimsy polyester of his blue shirt collar tighten around the back of his neck as **They** abruptly pulled him up by it. Drew had thought this was a way to his unofficial punching bag closer to target, and squished his eyes shut, bracing for a punch.

But instead, after a loud growl, **They** yanked the material off of Drew in a swift and forceful motion. He felt the burning sting the material left, and faintly felt the pressure in his head build. But he couldn't care half as much for either, his stomach was sinking when **They** got on all fours over him and flung the material of the shirt to some random destination across the room.

This close to **They** , Drew almost felt his musk on his skin, making Drew feel dirty and shivers go down his spine. His skin crawled. **They** noticed. He growled through his teeth once again, hot breath feeling suffocating to Drew.

"You _worthless_ fag, I bet you gonna like what's coming!"

Maybe it was the alcohol, the overbearing smell invaded all of Drew's senses now, but Drew had now noticed a subtle, yet drastic change in **They's** voice. It's growl like quality made Drew even more uncomfortable. And afraid. _Incredibly_ afraid.

Before Drew could even grasp what was happening, **They's** hands were roughly groping, feeling and squeezing his bruised chest. The pressure in his head built, along with all the chaotic thoughts in his head. He was disgusted. This was wrong.

He screamed. **"PLEASE STO-"**

A hand went over his mouth before he could get out any more. **They** was aggravated, and blinded by his actions.

 **"SHUT THE HELL UP!** YOU TOLD HER, YOU **_WORTHLESS_** , **_STUPID_** , SON OF A BITCH! "

Drew shouted underneath **They's** large palm. **They** slapped him, hard, against the face.

 **They** screamed. "YOU ASKED FOR THIS!"

Maybe it was Drew's pressured, cacophonous mind attempting to find some tangible piece of hope in Drew's horrible situation, but the tears in his eyes fell in an almost relief at the slap, which held an unbelievable familiarity to him more than anything else in this situation. Although that relief didn't help him from the vertigo he got from the whiplash.

Everything, his whole world was spinning, bile building up in his throat, pressure building up painfully in his mind. **They's** image appeared to be spinning round in confused circles. Warning lights were and flashing in Drew's mind. More tears fell from his eyes, blurring his vision more than it was. This was all too much.

 **They** took advantage of his disorientation swiftly unzipped Drew's dirty khakis with his unoccupied hand, then with enraged force, ripped them carelessly off. Drew kept trying to scream, and squirmed with more vigor. The warning bells in his head flashed this was _bad, disgusting, **wrong**_.

  _"NO,NO,STOP! WRONG, PLEASE—"_ All of his burning screams were muffled and unheard under the girth of **They's** palm. The pressure was finally building to an unbearable state and Drew just _everything_ to _stop_.

For someone, anyone, to protect him from the demons, the scars, _the pain_. But there was no one. The thought made Drew's screams cut off and a single whimper emit from his throat. _No one was coming_.

The voice returned.

_  
"It's ok.. just let go. I'll protect you. Please... let go..."_

  **They** yanked at Drew's underwear with a roaring growl. Drew felt helpless.

The boxers made a loud, ripping noise, leaving half of Drew's right upper-thigh out in the open.

_"Please, please let g-"_

After an air slicing tear, a whimper, and an eye twitch, an afraid, frail child was left naked and broken under an immoral, drunken man.

"That _fucking whore_ called your mother will never find out about this."

He looked into Drew's eyes, and for a moment the whole world paused, waiting for **They's** wanted silent confirmation.

  Drew was almost forced to stare right back into **They's** eyes, were he saw _hatred_ and _anger_ and _guilt_ , so much _**guilt**_...

  Drew couldn't take anymore. He shut his eyes. He felt the cold, _sinister_ smile on him again. That was all the answer **They** needed.

_"Please let go, I'll prote-"_

  Drew was roughly turned on his stomach, and pushed into the duvet.

_"I promise, if you let g-"_

  A rough slap hit a part of Drew he knew it should never have. The pressure hurt so much behind his eyelids, he was freely crying into the bedsheets.

The voice got louder.

_"I'll all be ok, I promise, if you let go-"_

All the insults blurred together. He was _worthless_ , _stupid_ , _a freak_ , **_nothing_**...

_"Let go... I'll protect you-"_

Drew slightly felt a bulge rubbing against his knee as **They** touched him everywhere. When the touches had got to certain places, Drew whimpered and let his tears run faster, his mind screaming, **"NO! STOP! STOP PLEASE!"**

 _"I'll make it stop! Promise! Just let go!"_ The voice shouts.

  And the pressure builds to crescendo, but Drew hardly noticed over **They's** never ceasing comments, that were making his own pleas for help die cowardly in his throat. Then, suddenly Drew's face is pushed even more into the twin duvet and a hand was digging its grimy fingernails deep into Drew's back, milking out Drew's pain as it went lower and lower...

_"PLEASE! I'LL MAKE IT END! JUST LET—"_

_Pain_. _Excruciating pain_ as one finger suddenly thrust into a horrible place, taken out then replaced by _two_ — Drew cried out loudly, the pressure burning his skull.

_'Why won't it end, why can't I die **whycantIDIE** '_

**_"LET GO!"_ **

And finally, Drew closed his eyes, and did.  
•••

 _"I'll protect you,"_ Andrew whispers.

•••

  It was Andrew who summoned enough strength to push underneath and through the body of the filthy man, opening and running out of the door, although completely naked.

It was also Andrew that had gotten chased by a newly enraged man, down the stairs and through the kitchen, where he grabbed one of the old, rusty vegetable knives with the washcloth on the sink.

The man turned on the kitchen lights, and rounded around the island to back the nude boy into a corner, mad glint in his eye.

Stone cold ones stared right back.

With the knife hidden behind his back, Andrew backed himself into the corner a little more so, feeling the cool counter-top material on his lower back. This drew the man closer, growling in annoyance.

"You sneaky little-" The man pounced, close enough to his target. Andrew got his knife at ready, knowing what to do.

In a flash, the frail, naked boy was on his knees in a forming puddle of blood on the kitchen floor.

 After a few moments of asphyxiation, a man was lying unnaturally still next to him. His plaid shirt with three open buttons was soaked with blood that ran from the knife protruding from left side of his chest.

 The blood soaked washcloth silently fell off the handle of the knife and slid downward to his neck, where a brazen, throaty voice would never spew out _lies_ again, along with their blood spattered, thin, pink lips. And the man's eyes, now glossed like a thin coating of frost, would never again show the burning feelings of _hatred_ and _anger_ and **_guilt_** -

  There was silence.

  But soon, when the puddle of blood below Andrew had grew, and he stared back up at the man's face, knowing Drew was safe, he let out a raspy laugh. Andrew _laughed_ , until he could finally make the pain go away.

And Drew _cried_. Cried until a diluted puddle, mixed with the blood spilled everywhere and his tears, was forming at his knees.

Andrew laughed and laughed and laughed, knowing that no one, ever, would or could hurt Drew again.

Drew cried knowing it was _over_ , and _this_ happened, and would never change, no matter how much he had wanted it all to just _stop_ before.

Andrew laughed until until his throat wheezed and seized and he could no longer utter anything at all.

Drew cried until he had no more painful tears to cry, and was left a bloody, shaking 9 year old kneeling on the dirty kitchen floor.

  It was over.

Andrew went to the light switch of the kitchen, careful to not leave a trail of blood.

  Eyes stone cold once more, he turned off the dim lights, and went upstairs.

•••

And so, for Drew, life was simple games in the garden, rummaging through a build-up of garbage in his impoverished neighborhood, and staying out of the musky townhouse he just could not call home.

For Andrew, life was protecting Drew, no matter the consequences, producing a normal, unrecognizable persona for them that no one could ruin, and making sure _no one_ , especially Drew, knows what happened that night in the townhouse Drew could never call home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wasn’t edited as well as it could have been but... see yah next time!


	2. And Then The Cops Came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh gosh, sorry for taking so long updating, I promise to try to do so weekly now. But you know, if you know me... let’s just say there’s 50/50 it’ll happen lol. btw I recommend all the peices of literature I get inspired from. 
> 
> Chapter Preview: Andrew vs. Rueben County Police...FIGHT!

* * *

 

_And then the C.O.P.S. came and took your mom. And it makes me wonder all night long ~ Em Harris, C.O.P.S Came_

* * *

 

As his protector, it was not as if Andrew despised Drew. Maybe a better word would be.... extreme annoyance. Yes, that's better, he thought, eyelids scrunching together.

Andrew was _extremely_ annoyed by Drew.

Even if Andrew's main point of existence was to keep Drew safe, and do all the things he couldn't, so that no one, ever hurt them again... that didn't mean he could stand him.

And looking around a police investigation room he was pushed into by an annoying woman by the name of Ms. Appleby, he couldn't help but scrunch up his nose, _extremely_ annoyed at the events prior.

•••

Drew was having a good day. Well, better than average anyway. He hadn't remembered much of the day before actually, or himself getting on the bus this morning, although his did not let this deter him.

    And although the bruises he had assumed he had gotten from **They** ached a bit, especially in places he didn't want to mention, his class had just started long division. After a brief lesson, they were given a worksheet. When Drew was the first one to finish, he was rewarded a lollipop and told to choose his favorite color.

The remnant flavor of blue raspberry still held its taste on his tongue, giving him happy thoughts. The way Mr. Mollusk had smiled at him enveloped him in warmth, and made the aching everywhere lessen as a bubbling happiness overtook him.

Getting off his bus, he decided to go straight home instead of going to the large trash bin at the end of the road, like he usually did. Mr. Mollusk's smile still made him feel as if he could stand up to anything, even the tyrant that was **They**.

Turning the brass doorknob of his always unlocked door (the lock had broken a year ago when **They** slammed the door too hard) Drew yelled out for his mother, who was most likely still resting.

"Ma! I'm home, Ma!"

Although he was met with no reply, he was also not met with the reply to shut up by **They** , which was ultimately a plus.

Until he saw he saw a puddle of blood, big enough to soak a large stain on the adjacent living room carpet. His heart stopped.

Then his eyes caught sight of the glossy, empty-eyed figure on the floor.

 **They**.

_'That fucking **whore** called your mother will never find out about this.....'_

_Too bright, too loud, **too much**..._

_Hatred and anger and guilt, so much guilt..._

_' **LET GO!'**_

Drew's head, it burned, **_burned_** so much. He staggered back, and screamed.

•••

Drew didn't remember much after that, but Andrew did.

Drew and his family, if that was the right word, had gained quite the reputation of being social outcasts. Although, the district-known homeless man by the name of Roderick Sylvester, had heard his scream.

Drew had, for some reason, just let this random homeless man into the house, and what had he done instead of pushing out this random, untrustworthy person?

Just _sit there_ , hyperventilating.

Oddly, the man had done the morally right thing and called the police. That wasn't the problem, the problem was that same man had blabbered to most of the neighborhood, shouting a lot of inconsistent information out to the streets.

Andrew was annoyed by this, as a large crowd had formed at the front doorstep of that townhouse, before the police had finally arrived at the scene. If Drew hadn't screamed, no one would have had to know about this until much later. Still, it was a plus to see that same homeless man get pulled out of there in handcuffs.

Although, what had Drew done as his mother was put into a police car roughly, or as that deadbeat's body was put into a bag and placed into an ambulance, or as the police and the paramedics had tried, although futile, to ask Drew if he needed assistance or was hurt?

Just _sit there_ , hyperventilating.

It wasn't until a man, Andrew guessed was a firefighter, put a hand on his shoulder that he moved. Drew flinched back, and Andrew fronted.

And now Andrew found himself in an uncomfortable blue chair, sitting in the waste-of-tax-payers-money they apparently call a police station. The officers had walked him through the station, stopping once at their bullpen, and then made unimportant commentary, before placing him in a child orientated interrogation room.

Andrew, mentally, wasn't the same age as Andrew. He was the older one, and being in a body as small and frail as Drew's already put him off balance. But even this horrifying room would be too brightly colored and childish for someone Drew's age.

It made him cringe more than he ever imagined he possibly could, with blindingly colored wallpaper, and overly expressing stuffed animals that made him want to rub his temples. He felt an oncoming headache.

The worst part of them all was how cheaply put together the whole thing was. The one-way mirror used in interrogation wasn't even disguised as anything else, and took up most to all of the left side wall. Andrew groaned in disgust.

Although he still had to focus on the current situation, besides the abhorring...  
everything. But when he had caught sight of something else, his head was almost bursting with a full on headache.

Why does a clock even need such a frightening smiley-face?

•••

The self-bolting wooden door on the wall adjacent to Andrew opened with a silent creak, evading him from his thoughts. Not that Andrew had much else to mull over anyway. He had already decided how he would answer and evade, and make it as realistic as possible without Drew doing the acting for him. Drew wouldn't really be able to handle... all of this.

So, as two remorseful looking officers quietly made their way across the brightly colored room, Andrew pulled the disturbed, most frightened expression he possibly could, then stared downward at the floor.

He repressed his bubbling anger at the genuinely guilty looks forming on the officers' faces, attempting hard not to break character.

"Hello buddy, you doing okay?" The woman police officer said this quietly, with a careful tone. Andrew was annoyed even more now.

What type of question was that? He, or Drew if you really thought about it, had just seen a person's dead body on the floor, not to even mention the events prior. Asking such a redundant question was like taking a fish out of water, then asking the fish if it wanted water again.

Although, he had guessed the officer wasn't expecting a reply, as she turned back to the male police officer, most likely signaling him to do something. He did, and sat in the other blue plastic chair across the table from Andrew.

Andrew's head was still down in 'sadness', but it was now to hide laughter waiting to burst out of his mouth from how comical the about 6-foot man looked in a chair made for 7-year-olds.

Which, Andrew noted in afterthought, was another reason this place was such a waste of money. Maybe if they, at the very least, used that apparently expendable amount of money to pave the crumbling roads they drove on a daily basis, his neighborhood wouldn't be as shit as it was.

Maybe, if they actually kept up with crime and its victims instead of showing superiority, that garbage of a man would have been in prison, and not at Drew's mother's bus station three years ago, apparently acting all _'quaint'_ and _'like a real gentleman.'_

Maybe if they actually cared, and the stupid, annoying, infuriating  on their faces meant anything at all, Drew's hopes of a person to hold on to, a person to love, wouldn't have been crushed into a million pieces time and time again.

And now, again, Andrew was angry. No, infuriated. This was their fault, and the police couldn't even fucking do anything but ask him generic questions and look sad and show all that _**guilt**_ -

_Maybe if they did all those things, Drew wouldn't have needed you._

A thought, sounding soft, cut through him like a knife.

Andrew couldn't reply.

He kept his head down, like he had before, and shut down. Darkened, stormy eyes were replaced by cold ones.

"Drew?"

Andrew couldn't have forced himself to look up at their faces. The female police officer said something else, with some sort of empathetic tone, but he hadn't heard it. Andrew just nodded, face still downcast.

The female police officer left the room, and Andrew didn't even wait to wonder if that was part of the question. It was most likely just an excuse to stalk him and his actions through the one-way mirror.

"That man laying on your floor was pretty scary right?" The male police officer breathed after his partner left the room. He then paused shortly, knowing Andrew wasn't going to answer the generic rhetoric. "Do you know that man?"

Something snapped in Andrew's demeanor. He was now staring upwards at the man, teary-eyed.

"It w-was M-Matt."

Pondering, Andrew came to a realization.

Maybe even if Drew didn't have to need him as his protector, he needed him now, and that was the important part. He didn't have to look back, that was then. This is now.

That was one of the reasons he called that waste of space by his real name.

Matt Roche.

Drew fearfully avoided the name like a plague, not connecting Roche's actions to a human being. The mention of it even seemed to emit more fear than seeing the man himself. But as Andrew whimpered out the name, no fear churned inside. He had nothing to fear.

The officer carried on, leaning forward onto the wooden table in front of him.

"Did your Mommy know Matt?"

He answered quietly. "Yeah, she l-liked him." He added a sniffle to hide his unintentional stutter on the word 'like.'

Andrew couldn't force himself to say the word love. Neither Drew nor he had any conscious thought how his mother could love the practical incarnate of the Devil, love the man who tortured Drew for two and a half years of his life. Even barely getting the word out left a sour taste in his mouth, almost as if someone force fed him gasoline. Andrew grimaced.

"Did you like Matt?"

That question left the man's mouth quickly, and Andrew realized he probably spotted the slight change in his facial expression. A new type of worry etched its way onto the man's face, aggravating Andrew enough for him to tap his fingers in a pattern against the wooden table. He was getting too close for comfort.

"Uh, M-Ma and Matt sh-shout a lot."

If he dug any closer, and Andrew just might have to drop the act. And as he thought of the truth he was holding back, an underlying, bubbling anger still burned, thinking about how that man deserved to have gone through the same torture Drew had, then should have been violated, and then _decimated_ over and over again-

Suddenly, there was a large hand on his shoulder.

Instinctively, Andrew flinched away.

"Don't you fucking touch me," he seethed, leaning as far away from the man as the dumb, small, hard plastic chairs could get him. And from that point forward, he was done with the games.

All faux sadness had disappeared, and the presumed to be young boy's face was replaced with contempt, anger, and disgust.

The young police officer's hand still wavered, shocked frozen in the air where Andrew's silhouette had been.

He let out a strangled gasp, finally comprehending what he was seeing and becoming incredibly unnerved by it.

The female police officer swung open the door at that moment, eyes wrinkling as she half-shouted.

"Marcks?" She was addressing her partner, but her voice quieted when she noticed the other aggravated person in the room.

"Can I see you for a sec?" That was all the invitation the man needed to almost jump out of the chair he was in, and fast-walk to the door.

Andrew glared at both of them, wishing he could burn holes into their skin. The male police officer walked out, while the female police officer spared a glance over her shoulder and shuddered.

"We'll be back in a few, sweetie."

The tone of voice and plastered smile were both tight and high. Andrew glared even harder at her pitiful expression before she snapped her head away from him and walked briskly out the door.

Even though deep down Andrew understood it wasn't the officer's fault for touching him, he couldn't help but get angry. He felt like breaking something, like _raging_ at something.

 _That would just make my day worse, he thought_ , angrily imagining at this time they were assigning him and Drew one airhead psychiatrist or another. _And of course at the time where I need the least amount of attention-_

The woman police officer opened the large door slowly, obstructing Andrew's thoughts. Both of the partners walked in, but now with a new individual.

He appeared somewhat old, pepper hair cut short, and only slightly unruly, like someone had dragged their hand through it plenty of times and it went back in place before abruptly giving up. His suit wasn't standard officer wear, no police badge or dog tag, its gray lapels swishing as he moved forward. Andrew guessed from this that he was of higher authority than the detectives, possibly a captain or sergeant.

Andrew couldn't help but notice the wrinkles of his face, arranging themselves in a grin he couldn't even imagine being friendly.

He imagined a different man with the same kind of grin, one that always reflected off of anguish and pain, and was now willing to burn this place to the ground to get away from here.

He then looked at his contender impatiently, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table while never moving his gaze from the man's face.

"Hello Drew, I'm Captain Morelia, Harvey Morelia from the Rueben County Police Department. We understand your situation, and would like to help you."

For some reason, his attempted welcoming smile began to appear as a scrutinizing glare.

"Really? Then I'm sure you know exactly who killed _'M-m-Matt'_ seeing as you know the whole situation," Andrew remarked with dripping sarcasm.

The officers made sounds that Andrew guessed were gasps, although he just continued to watch the expression of the man in front of him.

All the captain did was move forward to Andrew, and hold his smile a little higher.

"And do you have any idea who committed the homicide, Drew?"

Andrew scratched his chin thoughtfully, as if the name would come to him.

"No. I have no idea who killed him," he said after a minute, sparing a faux-sympathetic smile. Then, all his facial expressions faded to rigid, cold, and blank.

"Dre-"

"But I'm glad he's dead."

The male officer stumbled over his words, letting out a loud strangled gasp. He was most likely internalizing the image of a 9-year-old candidly revealing such morbid things to police officers.

And at his scarred face, Andrew repressed the fervent urge to laugh at his expense. Shaken to the core, the man excused himself abruptly and swiftly left the room.

The captain's smile appeared more plastered on and deadlier than before. Andrew felt like burning his face off.

"Drew, you know what your problem is?" He said warily, most likely about to go into a long speech about cynicism.

   Andrew cut him off.

"Captain, do you know what your problem is, what your whole _fucking_ group has a problem with? You can't even grasp how to do things correctly. This police station hasn't collected any sort of evidence from me as a witness, and I don't even know the names of the two detectives who have been interrogating me 'covertly' for about 20 minutes," he spared a glance over the now deeply bewildered female officer, before continuing.

"And in that time, you can't even be fucking bothered to notice the dozens of scars on an obviously malnourished boy, probably too busy basking in the thought of having a real homicide case to solve, which you would probably have several of if you actually looked two minutes right outside the fucking doors."

Andrew continued after smiling at the thought of wiping that annoying smile off the captain's face, as it was now a raging grimace.

"Oh, but you know the real problem is? That woman over there, her coward of a partner, and shitty people like you who think they can act as if they actually care about the people they interrogate, especially young boys with neglectful mothers who had dead abusive boyfriends, oh, and a hatred for your fake fucking smiles."

His fingers still tapped impatiently on the table when he finished with a placid expression, silently daring someone to reply.

"Dr-Drew, I- I didn't know you felt that way," the remaining officer stuttered out after ages of silence.

"You would have if you were a good cop."

Andrew didn't even spare a glance in her direction that time, directing his vision at the man in front of him in the blinding interrogation room, who looked as if he were about to explode.

The captain grits his teeth, before taking a deep breath and speaking again.

"Although I cannot state your claims as false, or the truth for that matter, under the circumstances... it would be best for your well being if you were to testify the truth of Matt Roche's death—"

"So, seeing as I'm a dumb ploy for people to actually put faith in you people, what do I get in return? A _'Wow! I'm not going to be tortured by a deadbeat another 2 and half years of my life!' sticker?"_

That was when a hint of the deathly expression the captain held before shone through, making Andrew have a newly burning wish to still have that knife in his hands and jab it through the captain's skull.

"By law, we do not have to provide you anything, but..." The captain moved closer, putting his elbows on the table.

If only Andrew had a knife.

"Your mother is being held as a suspect in murder and child neglect, which means she is most likely going to be in rehab or prison until further notice. She, nor the deceased Mr. Roche, have any relatives willing to take you in. You need to go somewhere... and foster care can be a damn rough place, well, depending on the one you get sent to."

He said this slyly, gesturing his hands in a slow, circling manner.

Andrew glared, then growled, "You would send a 9-year-old to be abused in a foster home for personal gain?"

"Considering the circumstances—"

" _Circumstances_ my ass!"  
The female police officer spoke after Andrew shouted, but was ignored by both as Andrew and the annoyed captain stared intently at each other.

"Are you testifying or not, Mr.Fernly?"

Andrew's face was blank after that, unrevealing. To the female police officer, it seemed to be more unrelenting. To Andrew, it was a way to go deep into his mindscape to pace and contemplate what was best, for Drew's sake.

The smiley-face clock in the corner ticked the seconds away for what appeared to be eons, or most likely a few droning seconds.

Then, Andrew emerged with an answer.

"I'll do it, seeing as your useless team wouldn’t get any evidence otherwise.”

The captain let out a relieved sigh, and the female officer looked as if she were recovering from a retching fit. The captain then looked at him again with disdain.

"Did you really have to add an insult to your proposal, Mr.Fernly?" His hand rose to shake with Drew on their agreement.

Andrew's head rose a bit to look at the hand presented to him. He smiled almost sincerely, eyes brightening in a way that almost made him actually appear Drew's age.

"I'm only testifying the truth, Captain."

He leaned across the table, and happily took the hand.


	3. Picking at Leftover Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew vs. Drews Past...  
> FIGHT!

_The marks humans leave are too often scars~_  
John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

* * *

 

 

Drew kicked his feet rhythmically, upwards and downwards. He hummed mindlessly to ignore the slight chill of the room he was in, since a nice lady, who came in occasionally, had told him to sit in this place until her return.

He held it to heart not to break her rules. Although, he did do so once to grab a tub of green blocks from the far corner of the room, right next to what Drew assumed was an oddly placed mirror. He paid little attention to it though, and after whispering an apology under his breath, he fast walked back to the plastic chair and opened the green block’s transparent container.

Although blocks were obviously aimed at people younger than him, Drew loved them as much as he loved the little pieces of discarded things he found in the trash bin at the end of his street.

He could mold and build these things into anything he wanted, from a princess or even a prince in a tower, urgently wanting to be rescued from storybook related imprisonment, to his old home with his mother at the apple orchard in the northern part of Pennsylvania. He remembered how his mom’s old boyfriend rarely spoke to him there, which was, in retrospect, was way better than what the preceding one did.

Sometimes, when tears pricked at his eyes and the memories of what happened in the morning or the night before were too much, he dreamed and wished and created a world where he had parents who loved him enough to show it, who didn’t berate or outwardly ignore him, who didn’t break his skin with the buckle of a belt _repeatedly_ —

And also, blocks and pieces of discarded trash kept his mind off of things, like one reoccurring question that kept pricking at the back of his mind.

Where was he?

Drew last remembered standing over **They’s** —

Well, he didn’t want to think about that. He breathed out shakily, then swiftly opened the block container.

Although, he couldn’t remember anything after that, up to the point where he was now, spreading his newly acquired blocks onto the large wooden table in front of him.

But he really rather distract himself than think about those things, though. He stretched his arms out to place the blocks in certain places, but bruises all over his arms began to hurt as he did.

Drew still found that odd, he really hadn’t remembered **They** doing any of that to him. And there was a soreness still, he felt it, although it was an odd sort of faint. Fainter than it should be.

He tried ignoring all of this, it was making his breath constrict and his chest tighten, but as the large mirror reflected his image, he just couldn’t look away.

And looking upwards at the large oddly placed mirror, he couldn’t help but find his vision drawn to the greenish-purple bruise on his left arm. And the red bruise on the nape of his neck. They were new. Newer than they should be.

And then Drew was breathing hard, in and out. The room started warping around him, fading and buzzing. His eyes were still captured by the image of himself. All these things were important but he couldn’t— he couldn’t quite capture why and it made him terribly afraid. Everything was turning, the mirror being its center, and the small sounds, the colors of the room, _everything_ , was getting _louder_.

The injuries burned now, his right hand was now digging deep into one as if trying to pull some sort of understanding out of his skin. Something _important_.  
  
The left hand was still grasping a green block, shaking dangerously along with the rest of his arm. A pressure was enveloping him, the same one as before. All Drew could do was gasp for breath as tears burn his eyes.

He closed his eyes tightly, the pressure becoming unbearable, and thinking desperately that he wants to be anywhere but here. His whole body shakes as he reaches forward to the end of the table in a lurch, trying to grab hold of _something_.

Drew’s green block drops out of his hand. He tumbles to the floor.

“Drew!” The nice lady slammed open the door, although, through Drew’s half-lidded eyes, everything about her was warped and fuzzy.

“I’m so sorry I got up...” Drew mumbled, drowsy, before falling unconscious.

•••

When Andrew woke up abruptly in a hospital bed, he was _furious_.

Andrew had thought he protected Drew from anything that man had done by killing him, then numbing all Drew’s injuries, but it seemed he completely forgot about the after-effects of the abuse.

He thinks, solemnly, that Drew shouldn’t have remembered any of the abuse, lest face the repercussions, but pondering a bit, he understood it was better just protecting him from the memories of his last night with the bastard. He then keeps thinking, breaching the topic of the man who did this to them again, and his rage meets its boiling point.  
  
That man, that _fucking disgrace_ , had done this to him.

Had done this to _Drew_.

And as of right now, he couldn’t do a single thing about that fact. His whole being, his whole reason for existence was to protect Drew and he couldn’t even do that. The thought itself made a weight pile up horribly in his gut and tears prick in his eyes, no matter how much he refused to cry.

_He couldn’t do anything._

Ms. Appleby, or _‘the nice lady,’_ as Drew had dubbed her, walked into the hospital room, looking frazzled, and dragging Andrew out of his inner turmoil.

Before, this lady had announced herself as Drew’s social worker for the time being, promising to take him to his new home—foster care. It seemed as if Drew completely ignored this fact and internalized her afterthought instructions to stay in that dumb chair.

Her hair was somewhat of an utterly complete mess, unlike before, her dirty blonde locks clumped together like straw in a bird’s nest. There were bruise-like dark eye circles forming below her pale blue eyes, making her already pale skin look sickly.

Andrew saw worry and fear in her in eyes as she frantically looked to Andrew. She looked about as bad as he felt. From all that he could assume, as a social worker, Ms. Appleby obviously cared a lot for her clients.

He didn’t like her.

“Oh, gosh... Drew! You’re awake!”  
“It’s—“ ‘—Andrew’ he was going to proclaim, but in realization, he catches himself. He hides it with a cough, and by the way Ms.Appleby rushes to his bedside, she buys it.

The woman reminded him of a chicken, flustering and fluttering next to him. He snickered into his mouth at the analogy, which he guessed Ms. Appleby assumed was him covering up another cough. She closed her hand around Andrew’s thinly clothed shoulder in comfort.

Aggravated, Andrew shook her hand off, now wanting to distance himself from Ms. Appleby.

But instead of the shock or guilt he thought he would see in her features from him shaking the hand off, he saw pity. It was thick, solemn, and grueling on Andrew’s eyes. He cringed hard, pulling at the crisp sheets.

Ms. Appleby’s eyes peered down to Andrew’s body. He saw her staring at the assortment of bruises he had. She didn’t look worried though, just pitiful and saddened, like a dampened napkin. He cringed harder.

That time it wasn’t simply because of Ms. Appleby’s annoying expression. He still had misplaced anger for the man who created them, and a guilt trip for not coming to Drew’s aid sooner. And then a thought hit him.

If she knew about his injuries, the hospital probably already had known about them and addressed them, including all the ones he had gotten on _that_ night. Including—

He shut that thought from his mind abruptly, paranoid that simply thinking of what had happened would reveal those memories to Drew. He then scrunched up his eyelids up in annoyance, but truthfully to stop the tears from falling. Now everyone would discover, including Drew, what happened. _Two whole days_ protecting him, and he failed.

_He couldn’t do anything._

The tears were stubbornly falling, despite the fact he had tried to tell them not to repeatedly.

Ms. Appleby gasped softly as she saw his anguish, but before she could comment on it, a male nurse with auburn hair, clad in blue, walked in.

He motioned to Ms. Appleby, check-board in hand. She looked at him, then stared back at Andrew with a hesitant face. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then left Andrew’s bedside to meet the patiently waiting nurse at the door.

Ms. Appleby gave him a look before walking out and left the door open. He guessed she meant to signal that she would be right back, although Andrew thought it as an invite to unintentional eavesdropping.

He heard a faint voice soon after they went into the hallway, one that he was sure wasn’t the young nurse’s, as it was deep, presumably loud, and raspy.

“I am very much sorry for what happened to this boy Ms. Appleby— oh uh, I’m Dr. Avers by the way. A full report has come back on his latest injuries...”

After a sighed affirmation from Ms. Appleby to read the report, the doctor started. His way of speaking was passionately disjointed, making Andrew angrier.

And as he spilled out his secrets and his purpose to the woman, a thick lump formed in Andrew’s throat, along with a burning of his nose and his eyes. He felt like raging at something again, crumbling the sterile white bedsheets, and growing aggravated at the slight pinch of the hospital gown they shouldn’t have been fucking able to put on him in the first place.

“...and a number of bruises Ms. Appleby, probably formed from large feet and hands! I’m very glad for whoever got him out of that situation...” The doctor finished lamely. He heard Ms. Appleby’s tired sigh back.

“But then, why had he fell—“

In that moment, Andrew cut out all sound completely, realizing something. The list the man read never mentioned any sort of sexual assault. His memory wasn’t perfect, but he was sure completely nothing of Roche’s malice towards Drew later that night was mentioned either, except maybe the mild concussion they got from being slammed into a wall.

He wanted to be angry at that, or maybe even a tinge disappointment that the full extent of Drew’s abuse wasn’t recognized, but instead he sighed in relief. No one had to know about the later events of _that_ night. His sense of purpose renewed ten-fold, knowing he still hadn’t failed Drew yet.

“... idiosyncrasy maybe, but like I said before, his malnutrition, dehydration, and probable post-traumatic stress most likely played a rather large part in it— and I would hope the boy gets a psychologists or therapy for that, too.”

As Andrew starts to listen again, he senses that this is the closing of the conversation. There was more non-verbal type discussion, and what he assumed were yes or no questions before he heard footsteps, the clanky ones of red pumps and the muffled, slow ones of brown loafers.

Andrew glared at the blank space in front of him and continued this trend even after both adults trickled back into the room. Ms. Appleby walked closer to him than the doctor, stepping on her heels first to make less sound.  
  
“Uh, Drew? Darling?” She whispered with hesitance in her voice, most likely not wanting to bother Andrew, his reddish eyes staring intensely into space and tear tracts crusting onto his face.

Well, she must not have cared too much about his state of being though, since she continued anyway, without Andrew’s reply.

“This is very sudden, and I know you might not want to go honey— it’s okay if you don’t, but Matt? You know Matt Roche— your mom’s boyfriend? His funeral is the day after tomorrow and well, you’ll be leaving the hospital that day an—“

“No, I want to attend.”

Her beating around the bush was getting fucking aggravating, and honestly, it was better if he stopped it right there, besides his past attempts at nine-year-old modesty.

And with that he kept staring into space, not looking up, not questioning, not even internally groaning at everything wrong with the some-what sentence that spewed out of the woman’s mouth.

Instead, he decided to think of all he wanted to say to Mr. fucking Roche at his funeral. Ms. Appleby spoke more, but he ignored by rolling over and feigning sleep. He had a lot of thinking to do.

•••

When Drew woke up disorientated in a hospital bed about 15 hours later, he was terrified. And alone. This wasn’t a good mix. His hands shook as he pulled the blanket he hadn’t realized was wrapped around him, feeling something scratchy and soft on his arms and calves.

They were bandages, the hospital’s gauze and tape effectively wrapping up his injuries. All he did was stare.

He stopped shaking after a while, still gaping. His Ma would never wrap up his injuries for him. Every time he came to her for help or even sometimes comfort, she ignored.

Tears fell involuntarily from his eyes. Somehow, in his empty section of the hospital room, he found his world collapsing from under his feet again, now with someone actually _willing_ to help him.

Drew curled in himself, calm, confused, but finally finding solace. With the odd afterthought that **They’s** funeral was tomorrow, Drew drifted back into a deep sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This used to be two chapters so, double update this week! Big of a contrast from not updating for months at a time lol. This one's intermission, next ones the big kahuna. Thanks for reading!  
> Edit: More things have been added yo this chapter because it didn't fit in with the next chapter! Thx again!


	4. The Funeral of Voldermort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew vs. Voldemort  
> FIGHT!

_Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it~_ J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

* * *

  
  


  It was cloudy.

Andrew didn't want to notice much else.

  It was cloudy, and Drew's mother was bawling her eyes out six annoyingly off-white chair rows in front of him, creating the usual atmosphere for a funeral. The police assists that brought her were looking wearily at her. Apparently, with useless cops by your side, you could attend funerals although in jail or incarcerated. Well, that's all that Andrew understood from the never-ending stuttering that always seemed to come out of Ms. Appleby's mouth nowadays.

  She was sitting right next to him, 2nd last in the sixth row, and looking a bit too fidgety for being at the funeral of a deadbeat she didn't even know.

  Andrew sorta felt as if he himself didn't belong here either, if not for the fact that he wasn't even allowed to sit in the front row for the funeral of the man he knew better and more intimately than the majority of the people here, then maybe because he had overheard from Drew's bawling mother that Drew— the same one she hadn't seen for a week— was devastated, and then outwardly ignored him along with everyone else in the front row when he walked over to them upon entering.

    Andrew guessed Roche being his _'surrogate father, oh how he loved that boy—'_ meant nothing in the eyes of spiteful and arrogant adults.

Even their expressions annoyed him at this point, six rows away he could sense the aura of scumbag-ness emitting from a whale-sized man with endless waves of fat bloating all his features. He knew a slob when he saw one, and a Roche even better.

  Another thing he could comprehend from Ms.Appleby's never-ending stuttering was that the slob had decided to have a funeral without Roche's mutilated corpse since it was under investigation by the police. His body would be buried separately when released. Andrew guessed he understood why Roche's father found a separate funeral necessary, the incompetent police department would probably take their time on this one, and a man with that amount of rolls on his backside and glare like that probably didn't like waiting.

The deadbeat's father had his arms wrapped possessively around the surprisingly skinny brunette sitting right next to him, her silk black slit dress an odd choice for a funeral.

Then again, even from here he could see she was smiling, brightly even as Drew's mother wailed right next to her. The airhead nodded in time with visible breaks in the other woman's speech, which Andrew guessed was less for comfort and more for saving face.

  He thought the same about the other people who approached the front row as they walked up to the funeral grounds, appearing remorseful and apologetic about Roche's death. He knew those emotions never really showed in their eyes. He wondered if they were visible in Drew's mother's.

It was cloudy.

That was all Andrew really wanted to notice, outwardly ignoring the plain fucking lies the minister spewed on that white altar during the dirtbag's... homily? Eulogy? He honestly couldn't care less, since it was just the same redundant shit reframed over and over.

"...and his family will speak of his perfections, though in life he was indeed imperfect, but now sinless in the eyes of the Father..."

  Andrew shoved his clenched fist into his black dress pockets, the same ones that were forced on him by 'gentle' persuasion via Ms. Appleby. At the time, he almost wanted to cuss at her that the pig didn't deserve his efforts when it comes to how he looks, diplomacy be damned. Now he was just glad the rough interior of the pockets made a loud enough sound to make people in the row in front of him turn their heads in annoyance.

  "...And he loved as our Father had loved, showed compassion without merit..."

  Andrew's gaze was only at the sky.

  It was over, well mostly, and Andrew hadn't looked at the pictures of Roche that were next to the altar once. He sensed Ms.Appleby's hand hovering over his shoulder, and shook it off even before it arrived. Stepping out of his chair and walking up to the large gravestone in long strides, he heard her call out to him, a call that was ignored.

   It was his time to say what he wanted to Matt fucking Roche.

All the while the people in the front row, who hadn't left yet, stared at him. A small raindrop fell firmly onto Andrew's nose. He ignored both these things, finally looking at the large framed picture of Roche from many years ago, bow tie large and slightly slanted just like his smile that apparently never met his eyes either. There was a tag on it stating name, birth, death, and a quote that made Andrew smile at how bullshit it was.

  _'Life is imperfect, but love never is...'_

"I wonder if you ever tried to say that to Drew's mom after your latest fallout... sugar talk her up enough to forget that you're beating her kid half to death."

  Andrew was muttering, but a couple in the front row heard some of what he said, along with the minister who was now giving him a curious look. He could see it in his perennial vision, the odd look that was telling of something else, and he couldn't help but smirk.

  Even when the man's actual body was most likely laying on an autopsy table,   being poked and prodded for answers he hoped they wouldn't find, and not this picture that was being held up by a tripod, Andrew felt as if this picture was who Roche was, an embodiment of the man who could have been. A man completely ignorant of the horrors he committed to a boy just a few years later.

  Andrew smiled, taking in the picture and all its features.

"I'm not afraid of you anymore, I hope you know that. He won't be. And I hope in whatever circle of hell you're in, you hear this."

  He breathed, suddenly sullen. "I fucking hate you. It's a deep hatred, really the type you can only obtain from being beaten by a person over and over again. But again, I'm not afraid of you. I actually want to thank you."

The minister was right behind Andrew by that time, he could feel it.

"Thank you for dying."

  "Are you okay dear boy— Drew Fernly was it? Your mother spoke a lot about you prior to the funeral."

Andrew turned around and uttered his short response to the minister, attempting not to notice the front row and change slowly walking up to where he was.

"I am now."

The minister raised an eyebrow at him.

  "And why is that?"

His black cloak was swishing a bit in the wind as he crouched down to Andrew's level.

  "Well, besides being glad that your annoying sermon is over sir, I'm getting used to not living with a certain someone anymore."

  "And what was wrong with my sermon dear boy?"

  Andrew knew the minister understood the implications of the last part of the sentence but ignored them. It almost made a smile inch its way onto his face. Almost.

  "You told the people what they wanted to hear, and not what they needed to hear. You lied for the sakes of the living, and not the dead."

He saw the man's amber eyes widen before swiftly turning back into a more pensive gaze.

"Then what would you have said?" he inquired, seemingly leaning in with the rest of the crowd. Andrew wrinkled his nose and smiled faintly.

  "Matt Roche wasn't a good man."

The tone of Andrew's voice was mature, rigid, and had a low quality that would have sounded facetious on any other 9-year-old. People gasped, acting as if their sudden intake of air would do anything but annoy everyone around them.

  "I know it, and everyone here knows it. In fact, a part of me didn't and still doesn't want to believe he was a man at all. He... hurt me."

  Andrew said that in a whisper like it was a curse. Everyone heard it though, including Destin Roche, whose round face turned a red hue in rage, and Ms. Fernly, who had tears welling up in her eyes and a searching look on her face.

  A part of Andrew couldn't stand to look at her like that, so he turned his head to the sky.

It was cloudy.

  "And I always wondered, what kind of man gets joy from other people's suffering?"

  The world around Andrew grew more silent than before. If Andrew looked around he guessed he would see people contemplating his question before becoming unsettled with themselves at not finding an immediate answer.

  "I got my answer from the T.V shows my mother seemed to love more than me."

There were gasps a few ill-placed chuckles.

"It said that men weren't feared, ideas were. So I imagined Roche as an idea, not a man. I never called him by his name, never looked him in the eyes. I had a certain fear reserved for him that I know at least one person knew about."

  Someone was crying now, Andrew decidedly didn't register the sound.

  "But right now isn't about that, it's about what I've learned. I've realized that people, like Matt Roche, are people all the same. We do bad things, like lie at funerals at the expense of the truth. Matt Roche wasn't a good man, but he was a man all the same. We should remember him as that. Please, for your own sake, remember him for what he did, and not for what we wished he did."

  It was odd, waiting for a response from people that were so talkative before about things they hardly knew about. He could stand to look at them now, but when he did, it seemed like they couldn't stand looking at him. He didn't know if that was irony or not.

"You _fucking worthless_ sonuvabitch!"

  Then, as the red flushed slob ran up to him in rage, Andrew thought, in hindsight, that his speech could have been a bit more reserved of the truth.

  The minister got in the way of the pig's murder path, jerking him away.

  "Now that's enough! Mr.Roche Sr., your nephew was only stating the—"

  "Nephew? Nephew! I wouldn't call that sack of shit, that—that _disgrace_ to the Roche name my nephew! What he had to say was bullshit!"

"You and your son already disgraced the Roche name you _fucking whale_ ," Andrew growled in rage.

  Dead silence. That was all that was heard as everyone gawked at Andrew.

  Frankly, he knew he got angry too quickly. He knew he was going to pay for his guttural way of expressing his emotions. But he also knew seeing the slob's jaw drop open like it was unhinged was extremely self-gratifying.

   And then, in the aura of quiet, Drew's mother spoke.

  "You're not my son, are you?"

  Heads swiveled to  Drew's mother in shock, others in confusion. The rest, including the minister, still held their gaze to Andrew, shocked or waiting for a response.

  Andrew looked skyward, seeing the clouds were piling, swirling, and turning darker shades of gray. He felt a single drop of rain patter on his cheek, waver, then fall down to his neck.

  Drew's mother pushed the stragglers out of her way, desperate look on her face. When she was closer, she reiterated, louder this time.

  "You're not my son, are you?"

  She stood, staring at Andrew's back determination. Tears fell, mixing with the dribble of rain. She shook in place, radiating with energy while Andrew held a stoic upright posture. He appeared to not regard her enough to turn around, taking more interest in the lightly drizzling sky.

  As a fierce standoff ensued, the police assist assigned to her were either too wary to do anything, or waiting for the correct moment to detain Drew's mother.

   Andrew turned to face her. A slow yet small smile creeping up onto his face.

  He closed his eyes.

•••

   Drew blinked once, twice, then three times, finding his eyelashes had caught hold of rain. When he fully opened them, he found himself in the epicenter of a crowd. Most of them were giving him odd or disgruntled looks, some an odd mix of both. They were in some outside venue, with white chairs that were slowly filling with puddles of rain in the dips. The dress wear he hadn't even remember putting on was itchy, especially the black pants. The rain made the bottoms wet.

  He then saw what caught other members of the crowd's attention, and a storm erupted in his mind. A mix of half-memories spewed through his mind faster then he could even process them. One single question had woven it's way to the top, resonating in Drew's mind long enough to make an echo.

  _"You're not my son, are you?"_

  Drew's expression took to shock faster then he thought it ever could, an underlying fear he always had eating at his heart. He shouted in retort.

  "Of course I am Ma!"

  Drew's mom shrieked in anguish.

  "NO!"

  She grabbed Drew by his shoulders, jerking him forward.

  Drew's eyes grew wide in shock as he stared into his mother's raging eyes...

  The next minute or so was a complete blur. Drew had no conscious idea how he found someone grasping his hand, standing at least 10 paces away from where he had been.

  He followed the hand gripping his to its source, which was a man with definite amber eyes and a worrisome expression. When he noticed Drew's gaze upon him, he tightened his grip on the smaller hand and attempt to smile. It ended up more like a grimace.

   The man had a black cloak on, growing darker in some spots with rain. Drew found this especially odd. When he saw the man's collar, which had a small square of white, everything clicked.

  He was at a funeral.

  **_They's_** funeral.

   His head started to pound and roaring erupted in his ears. He decided to stop this by following the authoritarian figure's gaze, wanting to get his mind off that fact.

  What he saw made it worse. His mother was screaming, being held down by two police officers. It was unintelligible what she was saying, but the scene itself was enough to make his heart clench. The crowd he saw before had already dispersed, it's last members moving hurriedly down a hill to the exit.

  Drew stared in utter horror as his mother was swiftly dropped into the back seats of a patrol car some distance away. Tears pricked his eyes. He couldn't stand to view it anymore but his body felt stuck in place.

  An eruption of faraway thunder sparked things in motion.

  "Words do things to people, my boy," the cloaked man said, "I had said the speech I did about late Mr. Roche to shed god's mercy on the mournful."

  Drew stared up at him confused, red hot tears finally falling.

  "I do admit, vanity and preserving one's image had a lot to play into what I said too, but..."

  The man turned his head, stared back at the small boy's face and sighed. He stared down at the grass.

  "Maybe you don't understand, but after all my years of seeing things like... _this_."  
   
   Through blurred eyes, Drew saw the sprawled out white chairs, the nice lady talking with the police officers, and the cars leaving the scene.

The man gave a tired sigh again, before continuing.

  "I know that sometimes the truth... doesn't have to be spoken all the time. Everyone does know it, even under all the delusion. And well... sometimes the truth... should be accepted by the person themselves. Does that make sense Drew?"

  Before he could even fully reply, the nice lady ran up to them, wobbling a bit in her cherry red pumps. She appeared frazzled and out of breath, even after she gathered herself and wiped imaginary dirt from the skirt of her dress.

   After muttering something about the weather forecast, she finally addressed both of them.

  "Well! Thank you so much, Reverend Philips, for watching over Drew while I took care of that! I'm sorry though, we really must be leaving now."

  She grabbed at Drew's available hand just as the other let go. The nice lady then fast walked to the exit with Drew in tow.

  But something caught Drew's eye. He stopped. A large picture frame was showing a man with a smile his mother always loved.

  _'Thank you for dying.'_

   The half-memories were in the forefront of his mind again, drawing him to move forward, away from Ms.Appleby.

_'And I always wondered, what kind of man gets joy from other people's suffering?'_

  He brushed the name of the person in the photograph with his fingertips, whispering it out as he went along.

  "Matt Roche..."

' _I've realized that people, like Matt Roche, are people all the same. We do bad things...'_

  In the photograph, he was smiling, completely unaware of everything that happened several years later. It wasn't a monster or idea in the picture. It was a man.

  "Matt... Roche," Drew uttered louder this time.

  It was always a man.

  Lightning struck the earth.

   And in that moment, Drew finally felt some sort of distance from the pain and suffering he had endured, what the man had committed. There wasn't fear when he shouted the name. There was nothing to fear.

  "Matt Roche, Matt Roche, Matt Roche!"

  **They** wasn't **They** , he was Matt Roche.

And Matt Roche was a person, Drew realized, the rain finally falling fluidly along with his tears. He was like Ma, who sometimes forgot the milk in the fridge had curdled and drank it anyway. He was like Mr.Mollusk, who made the class sing the special song every morning. He was like Drew, he was like the dark cloaked man...

_'And well... sometimes the truth... should be accepted by the person themselves. Does that make sense Drew?'_

He finally understood.

He stared at the photograph until his vision blurred and he could stare no longer.

  When he finally opened the eyes he hadn't known he closed, he was greeted with the face of a bewildered Ms.Appleby.

  "We need to go, sweetie."

He opened the fists he hadn't known he had clenched, letting her soft hands take his in the pouring rain. As Drew was led away from the venue, he felt weightless, like a pressure had been lifted off his shoulders.

  He glanced back at the venue he came from as he stepped over a sideways chair. A little farther off, he spotted the man in the black cloak staring at him. His cloak moved in unison with the wind.

   The man was smiling at him.

  Drew couldn't help but smile back.


	5. I Feel Fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drew Fernly vs. Love!
> 
> FIGHT!

_She said so_  
She's in love with me and I feel fine~ The Beatles, I Feel Fine

* * *

  
  
It rained yesterday. And the day before that.  
  
The rain was a suffocating subject to Drew. When he was still in the townhouse, it had always kept him inside and away from his trash heap. Which meant he had to stay inside with his Ma. With **The—** Matt.

The one time he had decided to stay outdoors during a shower was still embedded in his mind. It was the first time his mother had ever slapped him, hurt him even. He was used to Matt’s slaps, but this was something more. It hurt more somehow, like his whole world shattered into harsh, cold pieces at the back of her hand.

After he changed into dry clothes that day, Matt emerged from whatever hole he was in and decided to injure Drew until he couldn’t move for circumstance he hadn’t appeared to care for before.

_‘She never loved you.’_

Matt mentioned this with a smile after he was done. That, along with that night’s rolling thunder and lightning made up the worst panic attack he ever had.

Yet till this day, he still never blamed his Ma for slapping him. Afterwards she still treated him with the same amount of love, so he tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. Some days he tried to convince himself that it hadn’t happened in the first place.

But here, at Calvers Children’s Center, things like that were continuously brought up. If it wasn’t brought up by the intrusive thoughts of his mind, then it was by Ms. Appleby or the staff, who said Ma wasn't good enough for him and was going away for awhile. Who said Matt Roche's family couldn't be contacted for some odd reason. Who said he had to stay here, with his pitiful amount of possessions and suffocating pale yellow walls which reflected the thoughts he never wanted to think about as thoroughly as the rain.

Drew couldn't help but think his situation would be better if he was allowed to go to school. The staff here said he couldn't, and that he needed time to 'cope with his situation' and 'mourn his loss.' He mourned the loss of his Ma and Mr. Mollusk, but when it came to Matt, he felt detached.

He felt detached in general. All he did here was lie in bed. That was all he ever wanted to do. But sometimes...

Drew dreamt.

In the beginning, it started with an odd boy who spoke rude words and wore a mask. Then, it was memories of his mother.

Anise Fernly, a woman with sun-kissed messy brown hair and a smile that was always on the precipice of love and hate when she was near him.

They were at the park. They never went to the park. It wasn’t that nice a park, it had a broken playground and people wrapped in dirty coats, but he couldn’t care less with the way his mother laughed with him.

The way she smiled and played with him like she never had before. With sun flushed cheeks, all-too-expensive ice cream she bought dripping onto their lips and freckles. He was happy, happier than he had ever been.

Until her new boyfriend arrived at the park.

That was why they could afford the ice cream. That was why she laughed and the smile made her eyes crinkle around the edges.

When Drew leaned up to Ma and whispered that he didn’t like Matt, her mouth went into a thin line. He was just 6. He couldn’t understand.

Matt heard the whole conversation anyway. He grinned down at Drew slowly, in a way that made Drew’s guts churn.

Drew didn’t like to dream.

Calvers Children’s Center, or ‘foster care,’ as the nice lady who came around called it, had many rooms. He never went into them, obviously, but he knew there were other rooms where children who were somewhat like him stayed. He noticed some of them shared rooms, but there were no other beds in his room, so he guessed he didn't have to share.

The children varied in age, none exactly his age but close enough to where he should be interacting with them. Or at least, that's what the nice lady said when she came to his bed on Tuesday. He never did, for the same reasons he ceased interacting at school.

He thought himself uninteresting and had less important things to say compared to the other children. Not that he had ever tried in the first place, but besides, he knew from personal experience it was better to keep your mouth shut than speak. There was always a consequence.

So he never spoke. During school social hours, he read a sentence from a book repeatedly while 'unintentionally' eavesdropping on conversations he longed to be a part of. After school, he sourced out the most abandoned area in town and claimed its large garbage unit as his own to entertain himself. At Calvers...

He laid in bed.

•••

It was Friday, and it rained again.

He had been here a week and a half. On Tuesday, Ms. Appleby informed him he was allowed to go to school on Monday.

_"...but only if you want to dear, I'm sure you're still—"_

_"Yes!"_

He berated himself for his outburst when it was first announced, yet his days of moping around were becoming duller and duller as time went by. So dull in fact, that today he had decided he needed a change in scenery.

He found his way to the laundry mat with little guidance, being happy enough to get out of his bed today. No one appeared to mind, or really care in fact.

It was a large area, with four industrial size washing machines and four dryers, varying in variety. The walls of the laundry were painted sky blue, with white linens toppling over themselves against all the walls and other surfaces.

When housekeeping came in as he entered, he was polite, deterring conversation if he could. He asked politely if he could sulk in there, and he got an uninspired nod back. They ignored him after that.

Drew sat on the floor, leaning against the linens, and listening to the melodic rumble of the machines. Picking at the cloth he was leaning against, he imagined great expanses of soft daffodils waving their way across silken rolling hills. Drew almost heard the bubbling laughter that went unheard to the knitted felt sky. He tried to imagine someone to share that laughter with...

Someone like his mother.

The thought of that made Drew breath catch a moment.

But why? He was sure if she had the time, she would play with him. Wouldn’t she laugh with him, waste the day away tumbling down those hills?

Doubt ate at his gut. Drew sank deeper into the linens behind him for comfort.

His Ma loved him, right?

•••  
Drew was in a box. A transparent, frigid, large box. As he stood up to gaze at his surroundings, Drew couldn’t help but ponder whether the box itself was made up of glass, or the plastic of 3D glasses at the movie theater. Before he could think further on the topic, the world outside the box swirled.

Drew hadn’t even been consciously looking at his surroundings, and had no idea how it had appeared before. Although, now it whirled with warm colors, creating something cohesive. A park.

The park itself looked nothing like the one his mother took him to once adjacent to his neighborhood, where the benches smelled slightly of urine and trash bags wilted in the wind. This park was clean and bright, the type of place Drew had only ever seen if his mother allowed him to watch television with her.

The only people he could see in the park looked as if they were mother and son, strolling down the sidewalk. The woman had caramel skin and coarse hair, while the son, on the mother’s shoulders, was wearing a green cap and holding a red paper airplane which he was buzzing around. They were both laughing.

Drew padded forward in his box, placing his hands on its cold interior.

The laughter faded off into bright smiles, ones that made Drew’s stomach churn and the area around him feel emptier. He could deny that the family frequented the park often, sure. But his mother had never smiled, or even looked at him like that.

They spoke in a low mummer, as if in a world of their own. Drew tried to imagine him and his mother doing the same, but all that he saw in the back of his head was a dull smile and Matt’s manic eyes.

He shuddered, and suddenly, the box was cracking. The world around him shattered.

•••  
  
Drew awoke in a cold sweat, gripping on the linens he was leaning on. He realized he was still in the laundry mat.

Looking around, he noticed the lack of sound from both the machines and housekeeping. Drew breathed through his dry mouth, stoic and rushed. It made him feel more haggard.

Wanting to change the topic his mind was settling on, Drew leaned up from the way he had fallen asleep, hair curls flopping, to peer to the other side of the room. There was a half-opened window, which showed him it was not only still raining, but still daytime. The little, filtered bits of light shining through the drizzling clouds reminded Drew of something. A park...

"Drew! I've been looking all over for you!"

Ms. Appleby stood in the doorway of the laundry mat, appearing frazzled. Drew jumped up suddenly, feeling the urge to appear apologetic to the social worker. She never saw him out of his room before.

"It's a wonder how no one had checked up on you until now..." Ms. Appleby muttered aloud, lips in a thin line.

As he made his way towards her, Drew contemplated back on the complete indifference he had only ever gotten from the Calvers staff. He tried to analyze any sort of actual care he had gotten that wasn't for mandatory reasons, but his mind turned up blank. In his short time here, he honestly hadn't seen the staff regard much any child with that much care.

Drew hummed in agreement besides this fact, wanting to please his authority figure.

"Well anyway... sugar, I have some good news... and I have some, well, bad news..."

Drew leaned in, attempting a closed-mouth smile to address her. Thoughts of his dream, with real smiles and a real park got in the way. His facial expression turned out as more of a grimace. Drew saw Ms. Appleby grip the edge of the doorframe tighter with her cherry red nails.

“The, uh, good news is that your mom is- well I guess she was was before anyway- innocent! And did not... uh murder Mr. Roche,” Ms. Appleby stuttered, coughing awkwardly afterwards.

Guilt churned in Drew’s stomach, yet he had no idea why.

“She was at a friend’s house, actually! Uh Melony Parker’s...?”

She phrased this as a question, one Drew had no feasible reply to. He instead nodded, searching his thoughts for the name that was vaguely familiar. Which set the tone for an awkward silence.

Drew didn’t want to feel the emotions he was feeling when the words finally set in. He thought of going back to the townhouse with his mother, now that she was set free. It made his neck stiff. Then guilt roared within his being. He loved his mother, why wouldn’t he want to stay with her? Thought’s of her past actions flittered past his mind:

_Ma’s dull smiles, her ignoring him for ‘adult conversations’, Ma taking him to restaurants and hiding his bruises under big sweaters when it was a ‘bad day’, Ma never coming to save him from Matt, Ma slapping him—_

Drew’s breath hitched. A phantom pain ached at his cheek.

Though Drew didn’t notice, Ms. Appleby’s tight-lipped expression wore down more and more into a frown as she looked down at him.

“Drew, are you okay?” she questioned, taking her hand off the door frame and reach for him.

Drew’s view was to the ground, to not give away the turmoil in his facial expression.

“I’m...”

_No he wasn’t fine, his Ma didn’t love him and he was a burden to everyone and they ignored his presence even when he was hurting—_

“...fine, Ms. Appleby," he choked out.

He breathed, thought of the slim times his mother laughed with him, and looked up at Ms. Appleby with determination.

Yes. He felt fine.

That appeared to be a well enough response for Ms. Appleby, as she spoke again, this time with caution in her voice along with the odd inflections.

“Well, oh gosh I’m not good at this... I guess we should just steam roll into the bad news then...” she declared, sighing.

“Your mother lost parental rights over you... Y-you’ll have to stay here for awhile, sweetie. Oh, she’s actually in rehab right now!”

Drew scrunched up his face, trying to understand the words being spoken. _Parental rights? She_ _lost—_

And then all of the words clicked, and Drew’s world shattered once more.  
  
He felt his breath quicken, the world around swirl, and guilt burn in his core, yet he felt detached from it all. Why had he let go of a held breath? Why did he feel guilty, relieved? Why did his Ma not love him?

Drew gripped the edges of a washing machine for support. He couldn't even feel the cold of it beneath his hands.

_"You can visit... The other bad news... testify in court... you know, ’vital evidence'..."_

Drew could not comprehend anything through the roaring in his ears. It all sounded like scratchy messages through a bad radio, which he couldn't begin to reply to. He couldn't remember how to speak. At that moment, he could barely remember how to breathe.

"Honey, are you sure you're okay?"

_No, he wasn't sure because she loved him more than him and she didn't laugh with him like others did and did she even love him, why did he feel so much **guilt—**_

He knew that it was developing into a panic attack, falling off the precipice and into thoughts of his mother. He couldn't answer the question or even trust his words to come out. His muscles were taut, his throat closed and sore.

Drew just wanted it all to _stop_.

•••

And so it did stop.

Andrew let go of the sides of the washing machine, determined look on his face.

"I feel fine, Ms. Appleby," he announced in a quiet voice.

It wasn't fine, Andrew knew this for sure. But he had an idea of how it could be.

•••

Today was Saturday. Drew hadn't been in control since his conversation in the laundry mat. Right now it was only cloudy outside, with no telling if it would actually rain or clear up.

Instead of staring at yellow walls and sulking, Andrew thought it was an immensely more productive use of his time to contemplate his and Drew's situation.

Ms. Appleby had left soon after Andrew had taken control, right after informing him the bus they would now be taking for school left at 7:15 am. Before, she spoke about Drew having to testify the events of that night, the one Drew couldn't— and never would— remember. That ang Andrew to no end, especially when she used the words _'vital evidence'_ to describe why they needed him as a witness. That worthless police department could take their vital evidence and shove it _right_ up _their—_

Besides that, Andrew had been in control before, several times in fact, after Drew had fallen asleep at night. Andrew used that time to slink around the foster home, finding more and more ways to manipulate the place. It was odd Drew never questioned why he was fatigued in the mornings. Then again, Andrew didn't want to test his luck.

He had already mapped out the whole three-story area of Calvers Children's Center, and had at least viewed every room once. Most children were already asleep or too unconcerned when he inched open the doors to their rooms at night.

The rules of the establishment forced every child to keep the doors unlocked and turn off all lights at 10:00 pm. This was opportune for Andrew's sneaking around, as the home was a pitch-black setting with almost complete access.

Although at this point in time, it was midday. He thanked whatever deity that his footsteps were several tons lighter than Drew's clambering, if not, Andrew would have been noticed long before he made his way to the front office.

It was a medium-sized open spaced room, adjacent to the entrance. A sizable desk took up about a quarter of the space, with consultant chairs surrounding it and a pleather desk chair behind it. The desk itself was stacked high with folders and paperwork which were slightly obscured from view.

Unsurprising to Andrew, there was no one at the desk, which he knew from information he obtained the first time he arrived here. Posted next to a purple desk lamp, there was an office hours sheet, stating they opened from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm, had an intermission for lunch, then continued from 1:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Right now, it was around 12:30.

On Thursday afternoon, when Drew hadn't realized he had blacked out, Andrew observed that the staff never locked their cabinets during business hours, including the lunch break. This information proved useful now, as Andrew briskly crossed the open space to the desk, went behind it, sat on the floor, and unceremoniously scooted underneath it.

He opened the first unlocked filing cabinet labeled _'Child Documentation'_ in cramped cursive. The 3 cabinets below had no label, which he guessed was to hint at continuation. If the F last names weren't in this one, he had plenty more to check.

To his luck, this cabinet had sections A through G, stopping at a very poorly named Rory Greg Gregory. Carding through the files, Andrew found a _'Fernly, Drew'_ 5th from the beginning of the F section.

In this folder, there were three document: a birth certificate (which subsequently appeared as if it had been crumbled, to Andrew's distaste), a front and back sheet stating Drew's sex, race, date of birth, birth parents (one of which Drew had no knowledge of) insurance providers, and additional information below each topic, and lastly a written documentation of doctor's appointments, nature of visits, frequency, etc.

He was looking for the second paper out of the three, sniffling a bit at the dust beneath the desk. He peered down to the additional information section underneath Drew's mother’s name.

“Rueben Addiction Recovery Center...” Andrew hummed.

•••

Drew felt an all encompassing warmth. He felt his cheeks tinged, as if the sun only shined on his freckles. After a couple seconds of this, he finally cared enough to realize he was moving not of his own accord, and his head was resting on something coarse.

Easing his head up and squinting open his eyes, Drew saw an outside expanse, and his arms on the top of someone’s dark hair.  
  
“Fern, isn’t the park great this time of year?”

_Fern?_

Drew gasped. He hadn’t heard that voice in an eternity.

“Dally...?” he whispered in shock.

The voice and the nickname it gave Drew could only belong to one person. Dallas Harvey Visser, the only good thing Drew knew in his early days of the Philadelphian apple orchards.

“Yeah, Fern?” Dallas replied happily, oblivious to Drew’s disturbance.

Drew finally took the time to look around. He couldn’t stop his head from swiveling.

Drew was riding the now 18 year old’s shoulders through the sidewalk of a park. He could barely comprehend it. There were lilacs and lotuses growing around well-groomed hedges, a large playground fenced in with vibrant crimson wood chips, and a ginormous fountain centering the recreation area, with water spilling out and gurgling from and elegantly carved poppy flower.

Drew adjusted his arms on Dallas’ head, feeling as if he were about to fall off in utter awe.

“Where... are we?” Drew breathily questioned to the African/ Dutch American boy. Even in the small town he used to live in with Dallas, there was never a place like this.

“You said you wanted to go to the park, didn’t you?” Dallas directed back. Drew couldn’t recall ever saying that, but staring at the area around him, that fact meant less and less. Dallas then bucked Drew up on his shoulders, and Drew could tell that his older friend was smiling. He then stared down at the sidewalk, which he noticed was paved perfectly.

“But doesn’t the park look nice?” Dallas restated, turning his head over the scene.

Drew stuttered, heart welling up with all the things he wished to say to Dallas, all the things he had never said, after two years away from him. Drew burned with the urge to say sorry, a million times over. Drew left him, his best friend. And yet, he could barely articulate anything.

“It.. does,” Drew choked out.

“You know, I thought it would be nice to go to the movies instead, but no one likes to go through trailer parks!” Dallas cracked, like he always used to when he and Drew were together.

And Drew laughed, like he always used to when the older boy he looked up to like a brother joked in a way he could hardly understand. He laughed boisterously and light in the summer sun, blaming the chest pain he had on it. Dallas joined in soon after, with his sweet, deep, controlled laugh filling up the summer air.

“Fern, you kno—“

•••

Drew rose suddenly from bed, gasping in an odd way.

Rain was pounding rhythmically against his single window, and suddenly he remembered his laughter from before.

The tears started to fall before he could even notice them, staining the duvet that ripples around his frame. Drew just stared blindly at the pale yellow walls, realizing it wasn’t real. None of it.

There was no park, no Dallas, no puns, no sunshine. And, he added on as tears began to overwhelm his senses, no Ma either.

A sob wracked Drew’s body. He sobbed louder than he had in a long time, thinking of sunshine, and actual happiness and the want to forget.

Drew didn’t like to dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading, kudos-ing, and baring with me through my horrible update schedule. Although this is a bit under-edited, hope you enjoyed!


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